MONTREAL – Several Montreal-area hospitals have recently installed cutting-edge magnetic resonance imaging machines, but none is an “open” machine suited for the obese, the claustrophobic or small children.
There are no such machines in the Quebec public health system, forcing patients like Diane Lévesque, 50, of Granby, who suffers from panic attacks in enclosed spaces, to consider paying a private clinic for a medically required diagnostic imaging test that would normally be done at her local hospital.
“The government is willing to pay $20,000 for fertility treatments and my wife can’t get a $700 scan?” Lévesque’s husband, Peter Szokoll, said this week.
“This is discrimination. It’s a human rights issue. We’re fed up.”
In a take-it-or-leave-it letter, the Quebec Health Department told Lévesque to have the test done under sedation or general anesthetic. “It’s up to you to accept or not this alternative,” said the letter, dated Oct. 26.
When Lévesque began suffering from dizziness and mini-strokes three years ago, she went for a scan in the traditional machine, but the session ended badly.
“She got in and was able to hang on for five minutes. She had a panic attack and told them to get her out now,” Szokoll recalled.
As a child, Lévesque was accidentally locked inside an ocean liner trunk for hours, he explained.
Open MRI scanners have been developed for people who are anxious or obese. The basic technology of an open MRI machine is similar to that of a traditional MRI device; instead being pulled into a narrow and noisy tunnel, however, the patient lies on an imaging table that has more space and the magnet does not confine the body.
At least three Montreal-area private clinics РSouth West MRI, R̩so-Concorde and Medisys Health Рhave the device; an appointment can be had within 48 hours, and imaging fees are between $650 and $950.
Nearly one-third of adults are too large to fit into regular MRI devices. Another 10 per cent refuse to take the test because of claustrophobia.
Currently, Quebec patients who can’t use traditional machines are evaluated case-by-case by the provincial health insurance board and their fees are covered if needed, said Karine Rivard, press attaché to Quebec Health Minister Yves Bolduc.
Two years ago, the Quebec Association of Radiologists recommended the province acquire two open MRIs to treat obese and claustrophobic patients, association president Frédéric Desjardins said.
These machines are not new. They cost about the same and are easier to install, although they produce an inferior image quality, he added.
Quebec will be getting two open MRI machines, Rivard said – including one for Lachine Hospital, a designated centre of excellence for overweight people needing health services – but it’s not yet known when.
That’s unacceptable, Szokoll said.
“We’ve been waiting for an MRI for a year.”
In the meantime, Lévesque continues to have dizzy spells and mini-strokes. After an episode last November when she passed out and broke her arm, her doctor demanded an MRI to determine the root of the problem.
This time, the couple took no chances. They asked their physician for an open MRI. To speed the process, Szokoll took matters into his own hands and called university health centres to locate a machine. That’s when he learned none is available, at least not in the public health system.
Then came months of back and forth between the hospital in Granby, the health insurance board and the Quebec Department of Health about a private scan.
In frustration, Szokoll contacted his local politicians. No one wanted to take responsibility, he said.
Now, Granby Hospital’s ombudsman is involved. The hospital proposed doing the test under total sedation, but the anesthetic machine must have non-metallic parts because of the MRI’s magnet, Szokoll said, and “the parts are back-ordered.”
Lévesque’s case has been thrust into the hands of the hospital’s chief of imaging, he added.
Szokoll said he just wants something done. “This MRI was prescribed a year ago. She’s sick. We need to know what’s going on.”
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